By Jerry Freeman
A few years ago I did what many sailors dream of doing; I turned her bow to the west and kept going, toward the setting sun and America.
This is the time of year when old, bold sailors glance casually at a chart of the North Atlantic to check if it really is only 2810 nautical miles from Plymouth, England to Newport, Rhode Island. The motivation for this long term passage planning is the 12th reprise of the Original Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (OSTAR) which starts May 25th 2009 under the green and pleasant hills of Plymouth Hoe, Sir Francis Drake's fabled bowling track. The air will be thick with buzzing helicopters and the crowds massed in their thousands to bid fair winds to the 50 intrepid skippers who must battle westward along a trail first blazed by Chichester and Hasler for a small wager back in 1960.
Corinthian sailors, the owner-drivers, are drawn to this race in a diverse collection of yachts, attracted by the tradition and the romance of the event. In terms of challenge it is the Everest of amateur sailing but here every ascent is solo, and most of the skippers are Ostar ‘virgins’. This sounds like a recipe for disaster you may think but in fact there have been very few accidents in recent editions, the last were in 1976, a very rough year with a huge fleet. For the next race satellite tracking and Iridium phones mean that the fleet will stay in touch with base and for the first time AIS and ‘Sea Me’ (radar target enhancer) will be available to assist the solo skippers in keeping watch.
OSTAR is a race for the grey beards and the silver surfers, not for the young and headstrong. The last race in 2005 had a podium of 3 class-winning skippers with over 150 years of experience between them. Young sailors tend to crash and burn in the first 4 days of full on racing before they even cross the edge of the continental shelf. Here the true scale of the voyage begins to sink in; sleep deprivation is producing wild hallucinations and eroding their early resolve. Who said ‘youth is wasted on the young’? This is a grown-up’s game. Stretching out to the windward horizon the heaving trackless ocean shows no marks from the battles of previous years but the successful skippers will carry their scars with pride forever. It is often said that if you want to get to know a man then take him sailing, therefore if you want to know yourself try racing across the Atlantic solo: but beware you may not be altogether impressed with what you learn!
Technical stuff
The race divides conveniently into three fun size portions: The first thousand miles includes the sleepless zone getting clear of the English Channel, the Bishop Rock light is probably the last sight of land at the Isles of Scilly, then beating out to 11degrees west before dropping off Europe’s steep edge into ocean proper. These first few days are the hardest because sleep is at a premium, the proximity of hard Cornish granite and solid steel ships precludes any rest. The fishing industry has almost gone but it only takes one! Finding the sea legs after a week of carousing at the Royal Western Yacht Club is always a challenge while dehydration and lack of regular food conspire to bring even the most experienced sailors almost to their knees.
The middle thousand is the lonely stretch. Climbers will be familiar with the term 'exposure' to describe the long drop on a steep but easy pitch. The mid Atlantic is like that, the sailing is not technically difficult but it does feel pretty scary as the point of no return approaches. Unlike a mountain climb where the location and severity of difficult pitches are well understood, the solo sailor never knows where or when the test will be, he just knows a beating will be inevitable.
Fortunately as the fleet progress along 50-north latitude the ocean is warming up under the influence of the Gulf Stream diffusing eastward but the waves are enormous and gale frequency tops out 8% in June. Seven lows a month on average form off Newfoundland to track east or north east at 25 knots so the slower boats unfairly suffer more bad weather than the rocket ships. The wind changes constantly in force and direction demanding almost continuous sail area changes. The solo skipper now fully acclimatised and in tune with his environment, enjoys a sensation in ocean racing that can only be experienced by the chosen few. Perhaps akin to weightlessness in space this awareness is not available to those who always sail near land; the skipper and boat meld into a single entity, each knowing and recognising the others needs. Automatically and seamlessly day and night without hesitation the yacht is trimmed and steered with optimum efficiency like a silver dart unerring it its aim. Here the true enormity of the ocean and the utter insignificance of a man cannot be denied.
This elevated state of being is shattered as the ice reports come in; bergs and growlers down to 44 degrees north. The last thousand begins by threading the needle between the icebergs on the Grand Banks and the north wall of the Gulf Stream with its enticing warm blue counter current stealing 30 miles a day from the unwary. Continental America appears with a sudden bump in the fog at the tip of the Newfoundland Grand Banks; the echo sounder that was dormant for two weeks now shows 30 metres and that feels dangerously shallow after the 3000 metres over the graveyard of the Titanic.
Racing now in seas seldom sailed the astute navigator tries to stay in the chilly shelf seas for the final 800 miles, past Nova Scotia and Sable Island, to avoid the counter current. The problem with this route, apart from the bone numbing cold and damp, is the very poor visibility and the risk of collision with the menacing trawlers that figure high in OSTAR legends. Light head winds from the southwest and calms make this the slowest section of the race, although the improved radio reception from local FM stations is a benefit that many racers fail to fully appreciate at this time, Yee Haa!
The Georges Bank, Nantucket shoals, Martha’s Vineyard, Nomans Land: these names are as familiar to the Ostar skipper as they are to the New Englander, it just means that his race is coming to a close and in the next 36 hours he will have little sleep until Brenton Reef is on the chart and that slow winking red at Castle Hill comes abeam. Spare a thought for the unshaved and odiferous sailor when you see him blinking in the morning sunlight on Goat Island dock, he only wants a beer and a very long sleep and then he may tell you all about it.
Web links:
The Ostar 2005 can be rerun any time at www.oceanracetrack.com
The organisers of the 2009 OSTAR are Royal Western Yacht Club at www.ostar2009.co.uk/
About the Author
Jerry Freeman completed the Ostar in 1984 and 1992 in 27 days.
If you enjoy this website why not make a donation to The Institute of Cancer Research. For more information visit our Charities page.